


Stitching the Wounds Part 1: Turning At the Center of Time

by Blackletter



Series: Stitching the Wounds [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-15
Updated: 2010-02-15
Packaged: 2017-10-07 07:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blackletter/pseuds/Blackletter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and the Master work together to avert mutual and universal destruction.  (Oh, look, it's a Three Era plot!)  Only the Doctor is the Valeyard and the threat to the universe is himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stitching the Wounds Part 1: Turning At the Center of Time

**Author's Note:**

> For the best_enemies Audio Challenge on LJ. I would call it an AU, but the "Unbound" series is by its nature AU. So...this is an AU of an AU. AU squared. It takes as its inspiration (while tweaking some of the details) the audio play "He Jests At Scars," which asks the question, "What would have happened if the Valeyard had defeated Six in 'Trial of a Time Lord?'" The answer is: Become the Time Lord Victorious and practically destroy himself and the whole universe by messing with the time lines and end up huddled in a corner of his TARDIS afraid to so much as move lest the tattered threads of time disintegrate entirely and the whole universe fall apart at the seams. My great thanks to Evilawyer for tidying up some prose and inspiring me to fine tune my Valeyard characterization and x_los for more good prose whumpage and much needed triage on my Ainley!Master voice.

The inside of the Doctor's TARDIS was cloaked in gloom and filled with a graveyard silence. Shadows stretched from the console and hung from the walls. Not for the first time, not by far, the Master wished that he still had the superior senses of a Time Lord. Forced to wait in the doorway as his eyes adjusted to the minimal light, the Master mused on how _lack_ of a thing was sometimes a sign of greater cosmic forces than its _presence_\--the lack of light around the crushing gravity of a black hole, the lack of mass correlating to an increase in kinetic energy. The Doctor was always so loud—chattering, humming, boasting, pontificating—an absence of noise heralded only the direst circumstances.

Once his eyes were acclimated to the darkness he stepped forward, skin prickling with unease, and peered into the dim corners for any sign of danger. A skinny girl lay slumped against one wall, her bright clothes and frizzy red hair subdued in the artificial twilight. Her eyes were closed and her body limp in a trance deeper than sleep. Psionic energy wove a shroud around her. The ribbons of thought that smothered her mind streamed across the room, leading to the other side of the console.

The Master slinked further into the shadows, following the mental tracks to where a figure lay curled on the floor. The man's knees were tucked to his chest and arms wrapped around his head as if trying to protect himself from a world collapsing around him. He was hardly more than a shadow himself, clad all in black from his neck to his feet. Even his fingers, gripping dark hair, were sheathed in black gloves. Only a small sliver of skin was visible through the barrier of his arms, a crescent of white like a fingernail moon in a night sky. It was the ghastly color of skin that hadn't been touched by starlight in years. The Master, cocking his head in curiosity, moved closer. The person's head shot up, and an unfamiliar face glared at the Master with wild eyes.

"Don't move," he rasped in a dark voice. "Don't take another step."

The Master could recognize that voice anywhere, in any regeneration. No matter what new pitch, inflection, or quality, there was something fundamental in that voice that the Master knew like he knew his own soul. This wasn't the man that he'd expected, the one with cherubic blond curls and bad fashion sense, but it was the man he was looking for all the same. "My dear Doctor, you appear to be in a bit of a quandary." The Master shifted closer, satisfaction fluttering low in his stomach at the sight of the Doctor cowering against the TARDIS console.

"For creation's sake, don't move! If you touch me you could destroy the entire universe and yourself with it. You, me, everything, torn apart."

The Master paused, blinked in surprise at the Doctor's uncharacteristic terror. If the Doctor's assessment was correct—and the Doctor did possess a great deal of practical experience in assessing danger—then it was probably safest to tread cautiously. And obedience was no hardship when the Doctor pleaded so gorgeously. "Very well, I won't touch you for time being. You needn't be alarmed yet."

The Master was more than happy to draw this encounter out, make it last. The Doctor couldn't move, couldn't _run_, was helpless before him. It was as if some mighty cosmic entity had seen the Master's fantasies and decided to serve them up on a silver platter. The only blot on an otherwise delicious scene was that it was not he who had been the cause of the Doctor's predicament. It was most vexing that someone else had managed to do what the Master could not. "Care to explain how you came to be in this situation?"

The Doctor's reply was hushed, as if he were afraid of waking a sleeping monster. "You should be dead. I killed you en route to Logopolis."

"Logopolis?" The Master frowned. "I destroyed Logopolis centuries ago. What are you...ah, I see." The Master had been flying through the Vortex when he felt the threads of his timeline fraying. "When the focalized time started disintegrating into utter chaos, I suspected your meddling."

"Just go. Get back into your TARDIS and go. And pray that the universe doesn't crumple around us as you leave."

"Since my past self is now dead at your hands, I can't leave the Vortex without vanishing from reality."

"Stay in the Vortex then," the Doctor snarled. "Live out the remainder of your stolen life there, if you wish, just leave and do not return."

"My dear Doctor, you seem to have entirely lost your sense of compassion. It's most unlike you."

"Don't call me that. I'm not the Doctor." His hands clenched into fists so tight they trembled. "The Doctor was a fool, a blind, reckless idiot who deserved every death he got and more besides. I'm _nothing_ like him."

The Master raised his eyebrows in polite inquiry. "Have you developed an identity crisis to add to your many and varied character flaws? Very well, I'll humor you. Who are you, then?"

"I'm the Valeyard. And if you knew what I'd done, you'd hardly be surprised by my lack of compassion."

"And what is it that you have done?" the Master sneered. "Is it greater than destroying a third of the universe?" The Master's perverse competitive streak swelled. He and the Doctor could never resist trying to surpass the other; it was the cornerstone of their relationship.

The Doctor...The Valeyard hesitated, but when he spoke at last his voice was steady and assured as if the delay hadn't happened. "I slaughtered the Daleks. I killed them before they ever existed, as I should have done long ago. I seized the final victory in the Time War before it ever began and single-handily saved Gallifrey." The Doctor stopped, stared at the Master with burning intensity, looking for something. Understanding? Censure? If he desired the latter, he wasn't about to get it from the Master. As for the former, the Master was unwilling to offer the very thing that the Doctor had always cruelly withheld, even if he secretly applauded the slaughter of those treacherous monsters. So the Master said nothing, kept his face an expressionless mask as the Doctor continued.

"But then I wondered if I wanted to save Gallifrey. Those pompous hypocrites in the Citadel despised me while they were alive, did everything they could to curtail my power. I was stronger after the war, stronger when they were gone, and the universe would be better if I were free of their interference. So I destroyed them too. I thought I could bend the laws of time to my will. However, events did not unfold according to my expectations."

"You destroyed Gallifrey?" The Master didn't know whether to be appalled, impressed, or just cross that the Doctor had accomplished it before he could. In the end he settled for surprised. He had seen hints of something grand beneath the overly-virtuous exterior, a vicious little shard of bloodlust and desire for power embedded in his soft heart. It was there in the chaos the Doctor sought out, reveled in, before he soothed his conscience by bringing salvation. It was there in the way he snatched lesser species from their home worlds and held them at his mercy under the guise of showing them the universe. The Master had never ceased to believe that he might one day convince his fellow Time Lord to seize real power, but he had scarcely dared to hope that the Doctor would come into his own to such an extent that he would be capable of such a daring and brutal act as immolating their own species. "Which regeneration are you?"

"The last. The last and the sixth and all the ones in between."

That explained the reference to a Time War that hasn't happened yet, and, according to the Doctor, would never happen now. But as for the rest... "Explain. How can you be both the last and the sixth? I've met your sixth, and aside from sharing the smug, irritating demeanor that all your regenerations possess, you're nothing like him."

"It's a long and dreary story, all Time Lord politics and government duplicity," the Doctor warned.

"Since you're trapped in your own TARDIS for all of eternity, I imagine you have plenty of time."

The beginnings of a snarl twisted the Doctor's lips, but his expression swiftly slipped back into frozen inscrutability.

The corrupt High Council, believing that the most likely person to be able to best the Doctor was, in fact, the Doctor himself, had called to him across time and space. They recruited him to aid them in their plot to frame the Doctor's sixth incarnation, hoping both to hide their crimes and rid themselves of a troublesome nuisance by supplanting the contemporary Doctor with an older man they'd foolishly believed to be a wiser and more tractable version.

This Doctor, at the end of his existence, had been promised half a lifetime's worth of regenerations in exchange for his participation in the scheme. He threw himself into the plot with relish. He knew the Doctor's real crimes better than anyone, knew that the Doctor deserved to be punished not only for the official charges brought against him, but for his cowardice, his constant dithering, his reluctance to do what must be done. With that knowledge as his foundation, he had altered the Matrix to strengthen his case, called in one of his previous companions to testify against his younger self for the massacre of the Vervoids. She had never even realized she was being manipulated. The Valeyard easily secured the verdict he sought, but the Doctor had fought, chased his prosecutor into the Matrix, never knowing the identity of his adversary. It had been an uneven match. The elder Doctor not only knew how his younger self thought, but he also had centuries of greater experience to rely upon and was fuelled by a ruthless desperation. It ended as it couldn't fail to end. The Doctor and all his regenerations had been absorbed by this future Doctor.

"I've created too many paradoxes. I killed my fourth self, thus my sixth self can never stand trial. It was an accident, the same accident that killed you. In trying to repair the damage, I killed my first self, and so on until the threads of time twisted around me like a noose and reality itself hangs on the edge of destruction. All I wanted was to live. Surely you of all people appreciate that, the need to survive?"

It wasn't quite an appeal for assistance, but the Master could read between the lines. He tilted his head, contemplating the Doctor as if he were a work of sculptural art. He had learned long ago to hold his cards close to the chest when playing against the Doctor, even—no, _especially_ when the Doctor seemed defeated. The threat to the Doctor's life was genuine, of that he had no doubt, but he still recalled that the last time he'd tried to save the Doctor he had been abandoned in the middle of the Death Zone for his troubles.

"If it weren't for the fact your recklessness has jeopardized my own existence, I'd be more than happy to leave you here to rot. As our fates are entwined, however, I suppose it's only logical for us to temporarily set aside our enmity. Besides, I couldn't bear thinking that the man who defeated you in the end, who brought you so low, left you this broken and frightened was yourself, when that right belongs to me."

The Doctor's lips twitched, his eyes narrowing. "How very magnanimous of you. Make whatever excuses you must. I know your real motives."

"Excuses!" His spine stiffened at the affront.

"Excuses. After enduring twelve lives worth of your pathetic attempts to end my existence, I ceased taking your threatening prattle seriously. I know what you want, and my death at your hands isn't it."

"And what is it that you think I want, Doctor?" the Master asked, taking a threatening step forward.

"'Doctor,'" he echoed, speaking, it seemed, more to himself than to the Master. "There you go again, calling me 'Doctor.' From you, I'll let it slide. Perhaps you need me to be the Doctor, your Doctor, but then you also know that it's always been a mask." The Doctor's focus sharpened again. Smiling, he said, "Come closer."

The Master was tempted to refuse, purely to be contrary, but calling the Doctor's bluff might provide a greater reward than immediate hostility. And if the Master trod carefully, he might just come out the victor. He knelt at the Doctor's side. The Doctor had said "closer," and so the Master took him at his word, seeing how far he could press his luck. Wondering whether he could make the Doctor beg again, he leaned in until his face was only a finger's breadth away from the Doctor's, but still cautious not to risk further inflaming the paradox with a careless touch.

To his disappointment, the Doctor's earlier panic at the Master's presence did not reappear. On the contrary, the Doctor's smile broadened. "If you save me and the universe, you will have earned my admiration," he spoke gently, the words both a promise and a caress.

Scoffing, the Master said, "Even assuming I desire your admiration, I would think that I've already done more than enough to earn it. Have I not outwitted the Daleks, overcome death, and brought the universe to its knees?"

"Yes, and it was all very impressive, I suppose. But for every move you made, I countered and surpassed you. Now's your chance to do what I could not. Reweave the threads of time. Do this for me and I shall give you my..." The Doctor primly lowered his gaze, glancing down at his huddled and helpless body for a brief moment before once again meeting the Master's eyes. "...sincere appreciation."

The Master's groin tightened. His pulse, a single, Trakenite pulse that he'd never entirely adjusted to, pounded in his ears. He spoke quietly, choking back the tension and presenting a calm front. "I think you have an over-inflated sense of your own importance."

"Do I?" The Doctor's tongue flickered out ever so slightly as he licked his lips. A shuddering sigh escaped the Master despite his careful control. He rose and stepped back before he imperiled all of space-time.

"We'll need to start by finding a way to prevent your simplest actions from further stressing the web of time," the Master said, brisk and workman-like.

"The High Council gave Mel a time ring. Can you use it to create a paradox bubble?"

"Mel?" The Master had nearly forgotten about the girl slumped against the far wall and still unconscious to the world. "Petite, female, probably annoyingly vivacious when awake. This must be your latest companion."

"Not exactly."

The Master knew an evasion when he heard one, but graciously allowed it to pass. He paced over to the girl and looked her over. Ginger, possibly cute under the right circumstances but not particularly pretty. The Doctor's indifference to her made her more tolerable than most of the Doctor's companions, or perhaps it was the fact that she was unconscious. She held a staser limply in her hand, which the Master pocketed. The Time Lords must have given that to her, too, although she was an unlikely looking assassin. "She's in a forced sleep?"

"A dreamscape of my making. I couldn't have her blundering about in here trying to eliminate me. One false step and she'd destroy time. But the time ring is biolocked to her. You won't be able to take it off; she'll need to remove it herself."

The Master snapped his fingers, his mind already turning over countless possibilities. "You have control over the dreamscape. You can create a convergence of situations that would compel her to take it off."

"Or I could wake her up and tell her to take it off. It has the twin virtues of being simple and quick—virtues your schemes tend to lack."

"Do you really expect her to simply do as you say?"

The Doctor's mouth tightened. "She'll do it when she understands the alternative."

"I'm not sure why I bother to help when you always insist on doing things your way regardless." The Master crossed his arms. It was so like the Doctor to blunder in, all bluster and no plan.

"Only when my way is better," the Doctor said. "I can't help it if that's the case most of the time."

The Master scoffed. The Doctor was the most infuriating man he'd ever had the misfortune to meet. Alas, the girl was under the Doctor's control, and there was nothing the Master could do to prevent the Doctor from waking her if he so chose.

Reeling in the psychic energy from the girl, the Doctor spoke. "She doesn't trust me, so she might respond better if you explain things. Do try to be less sinister than your usual self if that's at all possible. I'll supply the stick if you dangle the..." He trailed off before finishing quietly. "...carrot."

"Play 'good cop' to your 'bad cop?' What has the universe come to?"

The Doctor's pale eyes gleamed. "Considering that you're starting to use Earth pop-culture metaphors, I believe the phrase 'hell freezing over' is appropriate."

"Perhaps you've been a bad influence on me," the Master said.

The Doctor smirked in response. "My dear Master, it is entirely mutual."

A groan from the corner put an end to what was just starting to become a very interesting conversation. It was so like the Doctor's pets to interrupt at the most inconvenient moments. The girl was waking. She drew a shuddering hand to her head. "Where—where am I?" she croaked out, voice rough after years of disuse.

"How unoriginal," the Master muttered to himself before speaking to the girl. "You're on the TARDIS."

"What happened to Nula and Chronopolis?"

The Doctor replied. "All in your mind, Melanie Jane Bush, all in your mind. Did you really think you could just waltz into the TARDIS and stop me? Your mission was doomed from the start. I could have killed you, you know, shorted out your mind before you knew what hit you, but I chose the more merciful approach. You should thank me."

"Thank you? It was horrid! People died!"

"No one died, Mel. Those people weren't real. None of it happened."

"Maybe it didn't happen to them, but it happened to me. I remember it. And I will stop you. I promised Nula I would." She tried to rise, but the Doctor's psychic hold prevented her. It pleased the Master to see that the Doctor wasn't completely relying on her cooperation. Still, best to stop this before it got out of hand. She had just noticed that her staser was missing and was beginning to panic in earnest.

"What you need to do, Miss Bush," the Master said slowly, as if speaking to a child, "is settle down before you break something important—like the universe." The Master gave a reassuring smile. "The Doctor, as you can see, is not about to do anything nefarious. He is trapped here, just as you are. But the whole universe is in peril and will be destroyed unless you help me."

"Me?" she said. The Master checked a sigh. All the Doctor's humans were appallingly dim.

"You," he repeated. "Right now the fabric of time is rent, almost irreparably." The Master paused, gathering his thoughts. Trying to explain temporal-string physics to lower life forms was always an exercise in futility. He reached for a metaphor she would understand, something so absurdly simply even a human could grasp it. "Imagine that you stand in the middle of a giant field of dominoes, all lined up. If you take a single step you can't help but to knock a few of them over, and this simple action would send the entire field cascading down around you. Now, imagine that the space we currently occupy is that center, and the fabric of reality the field of dominoes. Every time any one of us moves, talks, even breaths, the dominoes shiver. One incautious action and everything will fall. Do you understand?"

The girl's eyes were wide. She nodded, then halted with a look of fear, clearly wondering if her thoughtless gesture had just destroyed a galaxy or two. Good, she was taking him seriously. The Master continued. "Now, the instability is focused around the Doctor. To save the universe we need to stabilize the immediate environment, to glue down the proximate dominoes, if you will, to prevent the imminent chain reaction. To do that, I need your time ring."

Her hand curled protectively around the wristlet. "How do I know I can trust you? Who are you, anyway?"

"I am called the Master."

"That's a funny sort of name." The girl's face scrunched in confusion.

"Nevertheless, that is how I am addressed," the Master replied firmly. "I am a Time Lord. And it was the Time Lords who gave you the ring, was it not?" The Master pressed a bit of his own psychic energy into the girl's mind. Not too much, or the biolock on the time ring would detect the interference and adhere itself to her. She wanted to trust him, wanted him to help her, wanted someone like the Doctor but not the Doctor to show up and save the day. It took only the barest nudge to encourage her to accept him. "Give me the ring and I will fix everything."

With only a little remaining hesitation, she slipped the ring off her wrist and held it out to the Master. He took it in his gloved hand and examined it closely. It was a very modern design, elegant, and easily altered with the right tools. "Thank you, Miss Bush"

"People usually call me Mel."

"Unlike the Doctor, I prefer to maintain a certain formality, Miss Bush."

Her eyes hardened. "He's not the Doctor anymore."

"Yes, so he said, too. 'The Valeyard.' First a doctor, now a lawyer. One wonders if he's trying to compensate for something."

The Doctor sniffed. "So says the man who calls himself 'the Master.'"

"When we were young you approved of my choice of name," the Master leered. "Enthusiastically, as I recall."

"Once you finish constructing the paradox bubble, I might let you remind me how appropriate a name it is."

"Now, Doctor," he said, glancing at the girl, proud of how calm he kept his voice when his thoughts were anything but, "Not in front of the child."

The girl glanced back and forth between them. "You," she said to the Master, "aren't like the other Time Lords. You're not on their side, are you?"

"Very good, my dear." He did so love the look on the apes' faces when the truth finally sunk into their puny primate brains. "The Doctor—forgive me—the Valeyard and I are working together, for the moment."

"You lied to me!"

The Master rolled his eyes at her insufferable earnestness. He definitely liked her better when she was unconscious. "As it happens, I didn't lie at all. The fabric of time is in jeopardy and this ring will save it. More importantly, it will also save my life and the Doctor's. We thank you for your assistance, Miss Bush. Our gratitude won't prevent us from killing you as soon as the timeline is secure enough to do so safely, but we thank you all the same."

Her expression was rigid. "If I have to stop both of you, I will."

The Master chuckled. "You can't even stand of your own accord. By the way, Doctor, I must compliment you on your psychic skills. It appears you've been practicing."

The Doctor's smiled smugly. "You might say that I was inspired by you."

"I'm flattered."

"But like all the best artists," the Doctor continued. "I soon surpassed the original."

The Master scowled. "Just for that, I should take the time ring for myself and go," he snapped. "Once I create a paradox bubble, I could leave the Vortex whenever I wished, dead predecessor or no."

The Doctor's smug expression vanished in an instant. "Don't." His voice was hushed and tight with fear. "Please, Master, don't."

The Doctor's desperation brought a tingle to his spine. His vulnerability, his utter reliance on the Master and the soon to be modified time ring created some intriguing possibilities. The pleasure of the moment was cut short, however, by the girl's bleating.

"You're horrible. Both of you. Utterly horrible."

The Master didn't deign to acknowledge her. He strode to the Doctor and looked down into his pleading eyes. Savoring the sight of the Doctor on the ground before him, he committed it to memory so he could revisit it again and again. And even better than the image before him was the knowledge that soon he would not have to rely on memory to experience such indulgences, but would have the Doctor himself at his disposal. "Since you beg so prettily, I'll stay. But only if you keep your pet quiet."

"I'm no—" The girl's words were cut off in mid-sentence as the Doctor looped a psychic wire around her speech center and pulled it tight. The Master gave the Doctor a satisfied nod, pleased with how readily he was willing to hurt one of his precious companions at the Master's command.

Even with the source of his distraction silenced it took him the better part of a day to remake the time ring into a pair of paradox bubbles. At first the Doctor insisted on giving the Master unwanted and unneeded instructions, but another threat to abandon him to his fate silenced him quickly enough. When the task was complete, the single thin bracelet had become two wide bands just large enough to fit on a finger. The Master immediately claimed one for himself, then he took the Doctor's left hand into his own. The invisible bubbles created by the rings were already in full force, locally stabilizing the frayed timelines, rendering the Doctor safe to touch. Slowly, the Master pinched the fingertips of the glove the Doctor wore, pulled it off, and tossed it carelessly over his shoulder. The Doctor's skin was cool to the touch. Stroking the Doctor's soft and vulnerable palm with his thumb, the Master slid the ring onto the Doctor's finger. He now belonged to the Master, even if he didn't know it yet.

"One ring to rule them all..." the Doctor murmured.

The Master grimaced. "Must you always spout that horrid Human literature? Twelve lives and you still haven't got over your fetish for all things Earth."

"You should be grateful for my bad habits. After all, you're one of them." He placed his be-ringed hand on the Master's cheek, stroking down to brush the edges of his beard. The Master leaned forward to claim what he had been unable to while the Doctor was still the focal point of the paradox, but the Doctor, slipping away, rose to his feet before the Master could complete the kiss. Damned tease. Some things never changed, no matter how many regenerations. Still, the Master knew that the best plans needed time to come to fruition; he could wait.

The Doctor paced about the TARDIS, deliberating. "Mel was at the trial, has been in the TARDIS with me for years. She's tied to the paradox. She'll need to stay physically close to me, inside the bubble, or she could further damage the timelines. That means you can't kill her just yet unless you're prepared to drag around her corpse."

The Master gave the Doctor a filthy look. If he'd known that he'd be forced to put up with the girl for an indefinite length of time, he'd have held off on making his true motives known in an effort to keep her more biddable. "Any other crucially important bits of information you'd like to share with me?"

The Doctor made a show of contemplating the question. "Not at this time, no."

"That's not good enough, Doctor. I demand you tell me everything."

Displaying the hand that bore the ring, the Doctor said, "It's biolocked to me now. You can no longer threaten to take it away, and I don't need to do a damned thing you say." He grinned wickedly. "Poor Master, you should have negotiated better before giving me this."

Rage burned under the Master's skin. "You duplicitous bastard. I should have known your all your heartfelt promises were smoke and mirrors and you had no intention of honoring them once you got what you wanted. I should kill you, kill you and go fix the paradox myself." The Master shot a psychic dart at the ring, activating one of the extra features he'd built into it. He had anticipated that the Doctor would try to cheat him sooner or later; tricks and evasion were simply the Doctor's nature and it took a firm hand to keep him in line. He hadn't suspected that he would be tripping the snare quite _this_ soon, though, or that he'd be filled with such a seething sense of betrayal. Within a second, red tromon energy, produced by the paradox and concentrated in the ring, flooded the room to near saturation. The Doctor fell to the ground, trembling and gasping as seven different Time Lord senses were abraded raw by the overload. There were some moments, the Master thought, as he watched the Doctor writhe, when having a non-Time Lord body had its advantages.

"What have you done to me?" the Doctor whimpered, eyes wide.

"Poor Doctor," the Master mocked. "You should have paid closer attention to what precisely I was placing on your finger."

Crawling to his hands and knees, the Doctor spoke in stuttered gasps. "If _you'd_ been paying closer attention, you'd have noted that I never said I was breaking my promises to you. I was trying to tell you that I won't be your lackey any more than you would be mine." He stiffly pushed himself to his feet. The agony of the tromon energy licking down his nerves was evident in the way he swayed precariously and in the twitching around his eyes. Nevertheless, he remained standing. "You once offered me the universe, asked me to rule at your side as an equal. I'm ready to accept your proposal."

"Hah! You've said that before," the Master spat out. "I don't trust you, and this new you is even more untrustworthy than most. Your younger selves, sanctimonious as they are, would at least feel somewhat guilty about lying to me."

The Doctor staggered towards the Master, weak from disorientation and pain, until he was close enough that his black courtroom robes brushed against the Master's coat with every breath. He draped his hands on the Master's shoulders, heavily at first, as if using the Master as support, then caressed up over the high, embroidered collar and brushed his thumbs over the Master's cheeks. The Master was tempted to push him away, possibly draw the staser and see if the Doctor would be this audacious if he were facing down a weapon. But this was unlike the Doctor's usual games, and the Master wanted to see where these advances were leading, if they were leading anywhere at all.

The Master, scarcely moving, let the Doctor drift closer until their lips brushed. "Then don't trust me," the Doctor whispered, his breath tickling against the Master's beard. "But trust that our chances of mending the timeline and saving both our lives are much higher if we work together. In time, you'll see that my promises are true." He drew back and looked at the Master expectantly. "Master, turn the weapon off. Please."

This incarnation was everything the Master loved and hated about the Doctor—capricious, clever, cocky, and indecipherable. This Doctor, however, had promised the Master a chance to win him. From the Doctor's words and actions it appeared that the promise was still on offer. So long as the ring was on his finger and the Master controlled the ring, the Doctor couldn't break his vows and run away again. The Master nodded acknowledgment of the Doctor's terms and with another psychic command stopped the tromon flood. When the red glow dissipated, the Doctor sighed in relief and was limp in the Master's arms.

The Doctor's TARDIS, still as freakishly attached to her pilot as she ever was, converted a bit of energy into a leather loveseat against the near wall. The Master dragged the Doctor towards the thoughtfully provided bit of furniture and settled them both on it. The settee was small and the Doctor still weak, so he ended up half-draped over the Master, arms wrapped around him and body trembling. Claiming the Doctor's right hand in his own, the Master coolly removed the remaining glove, resolving that frightful bit of sartorial asymmetry. Gloves distanced one from reality, served as a barrier between the universe and the bundle of sensitive nerves in the fingertips. The Doctor was no longer allowed to maintain such a detachment, not from him, at least. Raising the newly bared hand to his lips, he brushed a light kiss across the pad of the Doctor's thumb, flicking his gaze up to admire the Doctor's face, more beautiful than before because the Master had made it pallid and clammy with pain.

"Tell me everything," the Master ordered and the Doctor obeyed, words at first slightly slurred as he recovered from his ordeal. There were no apologies for the earlier bout of unpleasantness. There was no need for such things between them. They had each made their point, and now either their alliance would hold or it wouldn't. The first sally was over and it was now time to get down to business.

"The facts are these: I defeated my sixth incarnation and absorbed him and all his potential futures. That was paradox one; it should have been a stable, closed loop paradox. However..." He hesitated. This was it, the moment where the Doctor proved whether or not he was serious about this alliance.

"Go on," the Master nudged. He reached out and brushed his fingers against the Doctor's neck. The Doctor ever so slightly tilted his head back in response, exposing a few more centimeters of skin above his collar, and the Master's eyes grew heavy-lidded with satisfaction. When the Doctor continued his explanation, although the words themselves were bleak, it seemed to the Master that there was a breathy catch in his voice as he spoke.

"Subsequent events have led me to believe that the paradox was not as stable as it should have been, and that the web of time is trying to erase my existence. There have been too many coincidences, too many unlucky accidents."

The Master took in this new detail, still casually caressing the skin under the Doctor's ear. The nugget of information, pried from the Doctor only after such trouble, raised the stakes considerably. "So we are fighting not just a series of highly complicated interwoven paradoxes, but also the will of space-time itself."

They were both silent as that grim pronouncement hung in the air. Then the Doctor smiled. "Well, we've both survived worse." He mused for a moment. "Perhaps we could go back to just before I accidently killed my first self, materialize your TARDIS around his, and forcibly change its course so that he's not on Logopolis when it's destroyed. Then we prevent my forth self's death—"

"No no no," the Master said, continuing his delicate exploration of the Doctor's neck, now drifting up to thread his fingers through the Doctor's hair. "My dear Doctor, you're being short sighted. That's always been your greatest flaw. You never consider the long term, never see the bigger picture. You're admittedly brilliant when it comes to overcoming an immediate threat—for example, a countdown towards planetary annihilation or a fanged monster with little patience and a large appetite—but you're utterly incapable of more intricate planning. That's what got you into this unpleasant situation in the first place, your tendency to enact the first solution that presents itself. You can't just throw a patch on a major paradox and pray that it will hold. We'll have to go back to the inciting incident and reweave time from the beginning."

The Doctor leaned closer to the Master, nuzzling his cheek, and murmured in his ear. "And what, in your opinion, is the inciting incident if not the moment when I killed my forth self?"

"The trial," the Master replied.

The Doctor pulled away. The Master crumpled the collar of the Doctor's robes in his fist to prevent himself from grabbing onto the Doctor's hair instead and wrenching him back. "We can't go back to the trial," the Doctor said, frustration sharp in his voice. "The paradox would have erased it from the timeline as soon as my fourth incarnation was killed. Dead forth means no fifth, no sixth, and no trial."

"Under normal circumstances and following a single coherent thread of time, yes, but as twisted as the web has become, I think we might be able to jump timelines from the current thread to an earlier one, the one that existed before you killed your forth self. If we can sort out matters there before it loops into this timeline, the whole web should reweave accordingly."

The Doctor tilted his head. "It's theoretically brilliant—"

"Naturally," the Master interrupted.

"—but in practical terms completely impossible. The TARDIS can't make the jump. The temporal axis node would have to be disengaged and without it she'd fall into the Void."

"Your TARDIS can't do it, perhaps, but then I'm perpetually surprised that your TARDIS can manage even a simple spacial hop. My TARDIS, on the other hand, is a state of the art Type-98. With the right alterations—provided by you, since your ability to keep this ancient bucket of bolts flying is a testament to your technical skill in the field of TARDIS mechanics—I believe it is feasible. Unless you have a better plan?" The Master raised his eyebrows challengingly.

The Doctor bowed his head submissively. "I defer to your wisdom."

A jolt of hot pleasure shot through the Master at that response, setting every nerve humming. Deference from the Doctor was always hard-won and short-lived, but all the sweeter for it. Eager to exploit this undoubtedly very brief moment of subservience, the Master tipped his head towards the Doctor's lips. Quick as he was to take advantage, however, he wasn't quick enough. The Doctor slipped from the settee and was off implementing some plans of his own. He strode over to the girl, who was watching them both with a cold stare, and with a psychic flip, released the bonds that held her still and silent. She tensed like a cat ready to pounce.

"Before you try to physically assault me, which would be a foolish venture considering the limited strength and speed of humans, consider this: you are sitting on a bomb, a 'time bomb' if you will. If it goes off, not only will you die, but the whole of creation will end. Everybody and everything you wish to save will be gone. The Master and I are the only beings who can prevent it. Therefore, if you've an ounce of self-preservation or concern for the fate of universe you will do nothing to hinder us no matter what we must do to resolve the paradox, what atrocities we may commit. Do you understand?"

The girl's eyes narrowed with hate but she nodded sharply. "I can't believe that I once thought that there might be something of the Doctor left in you."

"Oh, after I absorbed my younger self's regenerations, there's something of six extra Doctors in me."

"You're insane."

"On the contrary, I am the first of my incarnations to truly accept what I am."

"A madman?"

"Ice and fire and rage. Judge and executioner." The Doctor's eyes glittered with satisfaction.

"And once you're done saving yourself from this paradox thing, you're going to execute me?"

The Doctor crouched to her level, black robes pooling around him. "What if I were to agree to a _nolle prosequi_?"

"What?"

"If you cooperate with us, once this affair is settled I'll take you back to Earth, to your own time. You can live out the remainder of your days peacefully. Think of it, Mel. Back to your carrot juice and aerobics, David Bowie and Phil Collins, Margaret Thatcher and privatization."

The girl grimaced. "You were doing pretty well up until the end there."

"This is a onetime offer. What's your decision; save the universe and return home or risk destroying all of space-time and meet inevitable death?"

"It's not much of a choice, is it," she said.

The Doctor's reply was so softly spoken that the Master had to strain to hear it. "It's not meant to be. Still, it is a choice, and it's yours to make."

She hesitated for only a second before nodding. "I'll take the deal," she said, then added quietly, "I want to go home."

The Doctor grabbed her chin and forced her to meet his eyes. The Master gritted his teeth, memories of this man in a different body pawing one of his Human females. She resisted at first, then unwillingly relaxed in his grip as he made mental contact. When he ended the mental bond a few seconds later she shoved his hand away. "How dare you!"

"I had to make sure you were being honest with me," the Doctor replied.

Enough was enough. Time was slipping away, the paradox twisted ever tighter as they delayed. "My dear Doctor, if you're quite done fondling your companion I believe it's time for us to take our leave."

The Doctor stood and returned to his proper place at the Master's side, leaving the girl to scramble to her feet by herself. Placing a possessive hand on the Doctor's shoulder, the Master steered him to the door beyond which the Master's TARDIS lay.


End file.
